Power People of Kansas City 2017

Super powers, dynamic duos and wonder women of KC

TECH

Toby Rush (CEO, EyeVerify)

Remembering passwords is a thing of the past thanks to Eyeprint ID, the biometric technology created by Kansas City-based company EyeVerify. Rush, alongside chief scientist Dr. Reza Derakhshani, provides a secure, password-free mobile experience through the tech, which uses existing mobile device cameras to match blood vessel patterns in the whites of your eyes, making your eye the key that protects your digital life. And on top of that, the company sold to Chinese e-commerce subsidiary Ant Financial for $100 million.

Danny Wajcman and Brian Gruber (Lucky Orange, LLC)

Dynamic duo Wajcman and Gruber help small businesses and Fortune 500 companies alike minimize that “one that got away” feeling and usher them toward making the most out of every customer site visit with Lucky Orange. Through the toolkit, which acts as a screen recorder, companies pinpoint what works and what doesn’t with detailed analytics of user behavior including heat maps, real-time historical analytics of web traffic, polling and a live chat system.

Lyndsey Padget (Senior Software Engineer, FreightView)

Padget is one of the reasons Kansas City has been ranked as the second-best city in America for women in technology. She loves writing code, and she shares her enthusiasm throughout the metro by mentoring young girls to embrace math and science. She's also one of the masterminds behind the Kansas City Women in Technology’s Coding & Cocktails program.

Adam Fichman (Lifted Logic)

If you want to know what it’s like to be on the cutting edge of technology, ask Fichman, whose first start-up 1dawg, was the very first company to push videos from the Internet to a cellphone. Nowadays, the Blue Valley North alum and partner Rob Scott helps businesses make their mark with Lifted Logic, a full-service web development and design firm.

Erin Smith

Emerging Power

Erin Smith (Founder, FacePrint)

Smith, a 17-year-old senior at Shawnee Mission West High School, is gaining national recognition with her research and development of an app called FacePrint. The innovative and accurate diagnostic tool uses an algorithm along with facial recognition software to detect the early stages of Parkinson’s.

She found the inspiration two years ago in a video by the Michael J. Fox Foundation. She noticed that whenever Fox or other Parkinson’s disease patients would smile or laugh, there seemed to be an emotional disconnect. Smith also talked with Parkinson’s caretakers and clinicians who made similar observations in loved ones years before their diagnosis. Her findings, coupled with medical studies, served as the foundation for her novel idea.

Smith began working with local Parkinson’s patients and launched a study with the Michael J. Fox Foundation Trail Finder. Through this, she scaled up her data collection and was able to digitize facial expressions, using facial recognition software to capture the patients’ responses to Super Bowl commercials and attempts to replicate emojis.

With help from mentors, who she says are critical to her research, Smith hopes to be able to track the difference in facial movements between people with and without Parkinson’s. FacePrint isn’t available to the public just yet, but she hopes to have it ready for release by the end of the school year.

Smith is optimistic that the development of FacePrint will spark a much-needed conversation about the role of innovation in health care. As she continues to revolutionize medicine, she hopes to make a positive impact on the health and well-being of others.